It’s important to offer medical students enough experience with homeless and estranged patient populations to foster their sense of self-efficacy and development of positive attitudes.
The federal requirement for providing emergency medical care to those who cannot pay has been unsuccessful in eliminating refusal of care and the practice of “patient dumping.”
This case illustrates how emergency physicians find themselves with an empty toolbox and must compromise to meet their responsibilities to patients and themselves.
Pairing medical students with chronically ill community volunteers for 2 years helps those students gain appreciation for the experience of illness, develop self-reflection and perspective-taking, and learn to communicate with people who may be quite unlike them.
Keisa Bennett, MD, MPH, Julie Phillips, MD, MPH, and Bridget Teevan, MS
Reasons for the shortage of primary care physicians in regions designated as Health Professional Shortage Areas and steps that medical schools and state and federal policymakers can take to alleviate the shortage.